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Veal Pate

A baked loaf of veal, crackers, eggs, butter, pork, and spices, topped with butter and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Veal Pate

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Shape and dress

  1. In a large bowl, mix the chopped veal, rolled crackers, eggs, butter, salt, nutmeg, pepper, and chopped pork until well combined.

  2. Shape the mixture into a loaf and place it in a baking dish.

  3. Dot the top with small pieces of butter and sprinkle grated bread crumbs over it.

Bake and serve

  1. Add a little water to the baking dish and bake for 2 hours, basting often.

  2. Once baked, let it cool and then cut into thin slices.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Veal + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,930 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Pork + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Butter + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Raw leg of veal
Forms the main body of the pate, giving it its meaty structure once cooked.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together so the loaf holds its shape when sliced.
Crackers
Absorb moisture and add body, helping the loaf stay tender rather than dense.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, keeping the loaf moist as it bakes.

The step that matters

Basting during the 2-hour bake. Adding water and basting often keeps the surface from drying out over a long bake, which helps the loaf stay moist and tender.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, egg, butter, pepper, pork, bread):

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Sagefits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, egg, butter, pepper, pork, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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